


Time and Effort

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Awkward Crush, Awkward Romance, Discovery, Emotionally Repressed, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Injury, Mutually Unrequited, Non-Graphic Violence, Note the quotations around "love", One-Sided Attraction, Optimus is really bad at "love" confessions, Pining, Relationship Advice, Secrets, Sequel, compassion - Freeform, helpful friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 11:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7360099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Megatron attempts to make good on a promise he made to a certain femme, but Ratchet and Optimus obviously have to stick their olfactory sensors into his business...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time and Effort

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Precious Queen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2063538) by [Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor). 



> Sequel to [Precious Queen](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2063538); I wrote it a long time ago and forgot to post it here. XD

_“How is Optimus so blind to you?” Megatron asked quietly. “He ought to keep you closer than this, letting you happen upon my ship unaided.”_

_Arcee swallowed with difficulty. “Well, if this is all you’re going to do to me, maybe it won’t be so bad until I’m rescued.” Then she bit her tongue, unable to believe she had said that._

_“Oh, there’s no need for a rescue mission,” Megatron replied easily. “Knockout is going to patch you up and then I’m going to release you.”_

_Arcee gaped at him. “Just like that?” She ought to blast him in the face for telling such a lie._

_“Just like that,” Megatron agreed. “One chance for Optimus to see what he’s missing. Next time, I’m going to keep you and make you my queen.”_

—

A single thought had been plaguing Megatron ever since his encounter with the Autobot femme, Arcee. He rolled his oath to her over and over in his thoughts and knew he had definitely meant it, but now he was unsure whether he had been _ready_ to say it or not.

He knew exactly what needed to come next and hated it with his entire spark, but he couldn’t take back what he had said to Arcee, especially since his challenge for her had been to Optimus of all mechs!

Lord Megatron, master of all Decepticons and future ruler of Earth/Cybertron/whatever he could get his hands on…needed advice.

At the moment, only Soundwave knew of his interest in Arcee—

“Lord Megatron,” Knockout’s voice cut into his musings. Megatron whirled around with a harsh glare, opening his mouth to demand what Knockout was thinking, intruding on him without any introduction.

“I heard about your little…” Knockout waved his fingers around a bit as though unable to think of the right word. “… _quest_ for the Autobot femme.”

Megatron stared at him in utter disbelief, able to fully grasp only one thought: if Soundwave hadn’t been his closest confidant, he’d be a dead mech.

“What of it?” Megatron demanded at last, looming ominously over the Decepticon medic with teeth bared.

Knockout laughed nervously, clasping his hands in front of him and announcing, “Well, if you…happened to be considering someone to help you in catching Arcee’s spark, I would be the most relationally qualified.”

“Really?” Megatron sneered even as a bit of hope flared in his chest. “And how is that?”

“Well, I will admit I gained some personal prowess back when there were quite a few dames to choose from,” Knockout replied with some relief in his smile.

“Get to the point, Knockout!” Megatron snapped, hoping Knockout wouldn’t bridge the small gap between his impatience and his enthusiasm.

“Just give her an energon cube,” Knockout blurted out, shrugging and taking a few steps back. “It may seem cliché, but that’s usually how it starts out: lord meets the lady…”

Megatron glowered as Soundwave pinged him with an alert that the Autobots were nearby, searching for energon. Clenching the circuits in his jaw, Megatron shot a message back. :This is all working out too perfectly, Soundwave. Knockout, the most ‘relationally qualified’ mech on this warship, comes to me with advice for my current predicament just as the Autobots appear below.:

There was utter silence on the wavelength and Megatron barely reacted to the barely audible click that told him Soundwave had hung up. Loosely clenching his fists, Megatron addressed the small mech in front of him. “Leave, Knockout…”

“Yes, milord,” Knockout said quickly, bobbing a short bow and taking long strides for the door.

“…and return with a cube of medium-grade energon,” Megatron added, causing Knockout to pause and give him a hesitant wave of approval before disappearing.

Megatron released his vents slowly as he stepped through the ground bridge with some Vehicons around him, trying to prepare himself for the upcoming battle. Said battle happened in a rush, one which Megatron found unnaturally disorienting. His Vehicon troopers fought faithfully, even more so than usual because their master himself had come down with them, but Megatron was more concerned with finding his chance to get past Wheeljack and Bumblebee and give Arcee his gift.

When the opportunity finally came, Megatron almost missed it. He watched Arcee run to one side of the battlefield after felling a Vehicon. She knelt, resting for a moment or two. These were the moments that counted. Megatron walked stiffly toward her, sternly telling himself to relax and failing, his energon cube securely lodged under one arm.

At last Megatron stopped over her, his shadow swallowing her small form. Arcee stiffened, sensing the presence, and looked slowly upward. Megatron locked gazes with her and attempted a marginally unthreatening smile, but it faded when he glanced further down and saw her hands pressed against her side, energon oozing thickly through her fingers.

The Vehicons had been far too overzealous. He was going to kill them.

Before Megatron could put that plan into action, he found himself being shoved backward a few steps, Wheeljack shouting at him venomously to get away from her. Bumblebee was buzzing frantically as he hauled Arcee up from the ground. Wheeljack activated his communications channel back to the Autobot base.

“Ratchet, we need—” Wheeljack yelped as Megatron’s fist closed around his neck and the warlord surprised himself by bellowing into the Autobot’s audial.

“Open a ground bridge _this instant!_ ”

Ratchet sputtered in disbelief on the other side. “M-Megatron?!”

“Your warrior has sustained heavy damage. Open the ground bridge!” Megatron snarled again.

“Doc, do as he says!” Wheeljack cried. “We don’t have time for this!”

The ground bridge flashed open in front of them and Bumblebee leapt through with Arcee in his arms. Megatron released Wheeljack and shoved the cube of energon into his arms. Wheeljack gaped at him even as he backed quickly into the portal and disappeared.

Megatron stood in the silent aftermath of the battle for a long time, trying to comprehend what had happened. At last he decided not to even bother and called for a bridge back to the _Nemesis_. When he got there, Knockout crept toward him and asked hopefully, “How’d it go?”

“I’d rather not discuss it,” Megatron said in a very calm voice as he plodded down the hall. He could feel Knockout rolling his optics behind him.

“Don’t give up, Lord Megatron. You never give up!”

Megatron was met by Soundwave at the end of the hall and gestured for him to accompany him to the bridge.

“Keep a high-grade energon cube handy! Wooing takes time, especially when the lady’s on the other side!” Knockout shouted after him, causing Megatron to pivot and study each of the Vehicons passing within audial range.

“Set a reminder in your log for me to track down each of these Vehicons and kill them, Soundwave,” Megatron instructed impassively. “I do _not_ want rumors of this circulating.”

—

“Optimus! You’re never going to believe this!”

Optimus turned with concern as Ratchet strode quickly toward him, panic radiating from his face and EM field.

“What is it, old friend?”

“You know how Wheeljack captured Laserbeak and brought him back here, of course, despite the danger,” Ratchet rambled. “Well, I had Laserbeak in stasis lock and I was poking around, trying to find the last recording made on the Decepticon warship. I hoped maybe I could hear what Megatron was planning if he consulted Soundwave about it.”

“And what were your findings?” Optimus prompted.

Ratchet swallowed with difficulty and murmured, “Come and hear it for yourself.”

Optimus followed Ratchet toward the laboratory, patiently pausing as his friend jerked back and forth to make sure they weren’t followed by any of the other Autobots. What could cause such paranoia in him? Optimus wondered as the lab doors closed behind them. As soon as they did, Ratchet leapt over to the examination table and inputted coding into Laserbeak’s chest. There was a hiss of static and Optimus leaned in just in time to hear:

_“Don’t give up, Lord Megatron. You never give up!_ _Keep a high-grade energon cube handy! Wooing takes time, especially when the lady’s on the other side!”_

Optimus stared at Ratchet in growing disbelief. The medic met his gaze grimly, declaring in stiff undertones, “Megatron is trying to lure Arcee to the Decepticon side by expressing _romantic interest_ in her!”

“Megatron has never shown any previous interest,” Optimus answered, trying to sooth Ratchet and his own percolating suspicions.

“Oh-ho, you _think_ so?!” Ratchet hissed. “I won’t play the entire conversation, but do you remember when Arcee was accidentally transported onto the Nemesis and she battled Megatron? Listen to this!”

A few more input codes and Optimus could hear his archenemy’s voice. _“One chance for Optimus to see what he’s missing. Next time, I’m going to keep you and make you my queen.”_

Optimus pursed his mouth as he straightened to his full height. “So his challenge is for me.”

“Isn’t every challenge?” Ratchet scoffed. “But you and Arcee, that could never happen!”

Optimus said nothing; anything he might have said would have been cut off as the computer in the other room sounded an alert to Decepticon presence.

When Optimus stepped through the ground bridge with Arcee, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee, he knew he’d been right to bring all three, for Megatron and Soundwave, accompanied by Vehicons, were there waiting. Soundwave’s chest looked almost pathetically bare without Laserbeak to be secured on it.

“Return Laserbeak to us, Optimus, and we’ll simply walk away,” Megatron called almost pleasantly.

“Do you think I would so readily give up an opportunity to gain _information_ , Megatron?” Optimus replied in the same tone, closing his battle-mask.

Megatron’s face darkened considerably and he unsheathed his sword, charging with a roar that held a bit more fury at him than usual. Optimus strode forward to meet him and the battle ensued.

If it hadn’t been for the hidden reason behind Megatron’s strength in this particular battle, it could have been like any other time, Optimus knew as he was forced to the defensive, trying not to bend to the weight of Megatron’s strokes. To think that Megatron, who could easily be mistaken as sparkless, had an interest in  one of Optimus’ soldiers—!

To think that was very distracting, Optimus discovered as he stumbled and Megatron’s sword was aimed toward his throat. And it was also a benefit, he realized as Arcee ran toward them, weapons poised.

“Megatron!” she hollered. “Release him! Ratchet, send Laserbeak through the ground bridge!”

Optimus heard the bridge activate behind him and Laserbeak flew overhead for a quick reunion landing with Soundwave. Megatron nodded at his communications officer and spoke.

“Thank you, Arcee, for giving Soundwave what he wanted. And now I shall take what I want!”

Realization hit Optimus like a cannon. The time was now.

“Arcee!” Optimus called sharply. When Arcee turned toward him, Optimus declared, “We never speak to each other outside of battle strategies and such grave things and I find it is mostly my fault. I live with my optics shut, writing and archiving imaginary stories of the very presence that brightens my genetically predispositioned existence and yet brings me so low. I am frozen and you are not helping in the slightest!”

Arcee’s optics were as wide as Optimus had ever seen them and to Optimus’ grim satisfaction, so were Megatron’s. Gathering confidence now, he backed away from Megatron’s sword and stood, rushing on.

“I find myself thinking that if you were to try aiding me in freeing myself from myself and my archive of things that could never exist, no canvas would be big enough for the real tale that might follow—the continents, the moon and stars, the galaxies between us would become mere nothingness like the vast vacuuming space that they are!” Optimus wondered for a nanoklik if that last comparison had made any sense. In his audials he thought he heard Ratchet telling the rest of the Autobots to retreat, but it didn’t matter. His mouth had cruelly decided it wasn’t going to stop for his lagging processor.

“My spark bursts with pleasure when we are not together— _even_ _then_ ,” he put in, trying not to wince. “Even then, my thoughts are on you and the others present that I lead, but you most! You most plague me as an obstacle I cannot overcome without a second thought and I have been repeatedly forced to change what I’ve changed already, though I was already predispositioned for the change and didn’t know it, as I before stated, because now I know I _was_ predispositioned for this.”

He glanced down for a long moment, trying to catch ahold of his vents, and when he looked up again Megatron had vanished. Arcee strode quickly past him into the Autobot ground bridge and Optimus followed, embarrassed but also feeling satisfied. That satisfaction disappeared as soon as he reached the base. Everyone was staring at him, including the humans.

“Optimus,” Ratchet breathed in a mix of horror and awe. “What came over you? What was _that_?”

“That was a rad performance!” Miko squealed, jumping up and down. “You should totally go into acting; that would be the best episode of a soap opera ever seen! You’d make _millions_ of dollars with that junk!”

Optimus smiled weakly. “Indeed, Miko. But if I had known I had skills in that area, I might not be who I am today.”

A returning smile crept over Ratchet’s features. “That…was brilliant, Optimus. Excellent, in fact.”

“I couldn’t allow any member of my team to be lured to the Decepticon side,” Optimus declared. “Least of all, our two-wheeler.”

Arcee watched him walk slowly past with the same disbelief she felt emanating from Bulkhead and Bee. But behind her own shock at Optimus’ act, she wasn’t sure whether or not she was relieved…or a little disappointed.


End file.
